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The Court of Appeals of Indiana is scheduled to hear oral arguments Oct. 2 in a case involving a man challenging his firearm possession conviction.
According to the court, in 2020, Alonzo Fention Thomas III was driving his girlfriend’s car when he got into an accident.
The engine compartment caught fire, rendering the car inoperable.
Thomas got out of the car with his two children.
Firefighters arrived and extinguished the engine fire. When a firefighter checked the passenger compartment to make sure the fire had not spread, he saw a gun on the passenger-side floorboard. The firefighter told a police officer, who eventually recovered the gun after determining that Thomas had a felony conviction.
The state charged Thomas with Level 4 felony unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon, and Thomas was found guilty and convicted in Marion Superior Court, according to mycase.IN.gov.
Thomas appealed, arguing the warrantless search of the car violated his rights under Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution and therefore the gun is inadmissible.
In his appellant’s brief, Thomas argued that the vehicle was inoperable and was surrounded by police and firefighters, he was handcuffed, and there was no risk that evidence could be lost or destroyed.
“There was no emergency situation, and the police had ample time to seek and obtain a search warrant. Instead, the police took matters into their own hands and subverted Thomas’s constitutional right to have searches sanctioned by a neutral magistrate,” the brief stated.
The state responded that Thomas waived his constitutional argument and that the gun was admissible as part of a valid inventory search.
The case is Alonzo Fention Thomas, III v. State of Indiana, 22A-CR-3026.
Oral arguments in the case are scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Oct. 2.
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